Why Do Bleeding Hearts Coagulate When It Comes to Victims of Terrorism?

There is a thoughtful piece from Mark Helprin at The Claremont Institute attempting to explain why the bleeding heart "intellectual left" generally has been so reluctant to come to the vigorous defense of the United States and the thousands of victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks.  Some excerpts:

"Why does the Left so often abstain from defending not only American interests but, after September 11th, the United States itself?  During the Cold War, one could always suspect that democratic socialists lusted in their hearts for Leninism, and might have given themselves over had the balance of power shifted eastward.  . . . .  But no force, it would seem, should be capable of transforming even a lifetime of socialist ardor into sympathy for absolutist mullahs, 10th-century tribal warriors, decapitators, and circumcisors of women.

"It would make no sense. And yet as the immense plumes of smoke and dust still were rising in strength from the ruins of the World Trade Center, and not a single shot had been fired or a single soldier sacrificed in what was to become the War on Terrorism, the worldwide Left mobilized instantaneously to assert that such a war—the particulars and extent of which it could not know—would be unjust."

"Most remarkable is the initial and continuing indifference both to those who perished and to the country itself as it came under attack. On a political level, the Left could summon no indignation after assaults upon America's capital, defense headquarters, civil aviation, embassies, warships, and chief city, any one of which would be a classic and unambiguous casus belli, while in strange contrast it seemed to regard the mere presence of Americans in Saudi Arabia, the trade in oil, and the Arab world's exposure to American popular culture as unpardonable aggressions."

"Irrationality on a political level from these quarters has never been a shock. On a personal level, however, the predominant response of the intellectual Left was a mystery. It was as if the thousands of crushed and incinerated men, women, and children—those who threw themselves into a quarter-mile abyss rather than have the flesh seared off their bones as they stood in the wind at glassless walls, the small children who died in terror after watching hysterical fanatics slit the throats of screaming stewardesses, and so on, for there are almost three thousand stories—simply did not exist."

The author focuses on the left's historic love for collectivism, and suggests that, to the left, the 3,000 or so who perished September 11th are like a single wildebeest sacrificed to predators for the greater good of the larger herd:

"But by its hostility to virtually every part of the War on Terrorism, and its continuing assertion that in this war almost every step America has taken is an unnecessary and wasteful overreaction, the Left implicitly makes the argument that the dead of September 11 represent only one one-hundred-thousandth of the American population, and that although intelligent people understand the implications of this, the impatient jingoes who "control" the country do not."

The piece is excellent and worth reading.  Continuing the discussion, however, I believe that there's more than just a love of collectivism behind liberal indifference to the victims of terrorism.

After all, leftists are eager to recognize the "victimization" of individual terrorists, such as "insurgents" in Iraq and homicide bombers various places around the world.  The terrorists' individual sufferings are typically magnified to at least 10 times their actual size, while their immorality in deliberately murdering innocent civilians is minimized by a factor of at least 100.  For example, the presence of representatives from another nation on the soil of a country, even with permission of the government of the host country, is seized on as an "occupation" that logically explains the car-bombing murder of perhaps 100 local civilians at a time.  The usual "solution" is to demand the eviction of the "occupiers," not the murderous car-bombers.

Too many leftists manage to convince themselves, and try to convince us, that there is no difference between deliberately targeting and killing non-combatant men, women, and children and inadvertently or accidentally causing civilian casualties while pursuing terrorists.

Of course there is a difference, and it is all-important.

Both in the law and in morality, an intentional wrong is completely different from an accidental wrong -- it is the difference between premeditated murder and accidental death.  Premeditated murder is just about the most heinous crime a person can commit.  By contrast, accidental killing often is not treated as a crime at all.  When it is a crime (in cases of negligent manslaughter, for example), it is a crime of a completely different degree.  As Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked."

So what can possibly explain this leftist eagerness to understand, rationalize, and indulge genuine evil?

I believe that the answer may lie in a reluctance to believe in genuine good.  Many leftists reject or are in rebellion against one or more of the important traditional Western values and institutions:  democracy, individual liberty, free markets, traditional morality as defined by the Judeo-Christian ethic, and traditional religions, especially Christianity and Judaism.

Most of these values are basically good.  Democracy is the machinery of self-government.  Individual liberty is the source of countless blessings.  Free markets are the engine of our prosperity.  Traditional morality encourages people to be kind, responsible, and good.  Traditional religions put our lives in context and illuminate the meaning to our lives.

If someone chooses to rebel against one or more of these positive values (if only because conventional values tend to "cramp" their style), then it's a very short step to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." 

To take the United States for example -- if it stands for democracy, liberty, free markets, traditional morality, and traditional religions, especially Christianity and Judaism --

-- and if Saddam Hussein, for example, is an enemy of the United States --

-- then nobody is going to openly take the side of a murderous dictator but --

-- isn't that a nicely tailored suit he's wearing in court today? --

-- and will Saddam Hussein ever get a fair trial anyway --

-- and in fact isn't the whole trial just a farce?

Saddam Hussein may not be Time's "Man of the Year" next year, but his attorney Ramsey Clark -- now there's a brave man, eh?

You have to love good not enough, or loathe evil not enough, to sympathize with terrorists.

You have to love good not enough, or loathe evil not enough, to see Saddam Hussein's claim of "torture" as a more serious concern than the very real torture of his countless victims. 

It's not just a love of collectivism that inspires a love of terrorism and terrorist dictators, although that certainly is a factor.  It's also a loathing of, or a deliberate indifference to, the traditional positive values that underlie most successful nations.

If you loathe too many things that are basically good, then what you are left with to admire?  Too many things that are morally meaningless, and a few things that are genuinely evil.

The line between good and evil cannot be erased by ignoring it or attempting to trivialize it.  One way to attempt to trivialize it is to claim that words like "good" and "evil" are childishly oversimplified and out of date.

Sadly, evil is not child's play, nor is it out of date.  Fortunately, neither is goodness.

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Hat tip to American Digest.